“It’s an interesting word, encompassing, because each song, I feel, is like a universe unto itself . He’s drawing you in, not just by speaking or singing softly, but by the power of his delivery and the power of his concentration, and his absolute dedication to that moment and that song.
If I follow the curve of the piece and want to linger a bit, rather than go right over the edge back to melancholy from raging against the heavens, then the Elliott Smith songs serve rather well. They come very much of out of that same sort of idea that texture is a very, very important part of what makes Schumann’s music very beautiful to me. The melodies are pretty good, too, but mostly it’s the way that he gets different characters out of keys, like Elliott could do with the various colors at his disposal in the studio.”
Christopher O’Riley
